


you're like a drug to me, a luxury, my sugar and gold (and you don't even know)

by mooosicaldreamz



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F, and i saw it AGAIN yesterday, anyway it's basically about how trini can't handle kimberly, i started writing this at approximately two in the morning the day i saw the movie, neither can i so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 01:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10526100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooosicaldreamz/pseuds/mooosicaldreamz
Summary: It isn’t hard to notice Kimberly Hart. Trini isn’t really into labels, but she sure as hell knows that she’s at least a little bit something when she sees the girl flounce in. Biology is boring, and Kimberly Hart’s legs are long and her jeans leave so little to the imagination.This whole…disaster of an attraction is easy enough to ignore. Trini can pretend that she does not stare at the girl’s legs. She can pretend, even, that she hasn’t seen Kimberly strip and dive into a pool of water up on the mountain. It’s easy; Kimberly doesn’t know who the hell she is, and Trini isn’t interested in explaining, either.Of course, then Billy Cranston blows up a fucking mountain.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hello, ya nerds. i was trapped in a glass case of emotion throughout this film. here is the result of my pain and suffering. title is from "handclap" by fitz and the tantrums. baeta skills by lynnearlington. come shout at me about power rangers and other things at my tumblr: mooosicaldreamz.tumblr.com

Truthfully, it isn’t hard to notice Kimberly Hart. Trini isn’t really into labels, but she sure as hell knows that she’s at least a little bit something when she sees the girl flounce in. Biology is boring, and Kimberly Hart’s legs are long and her jeans leave so little to the imagination. And then there are Fridays, when she wears a baby blue cheerleading uniform, dutifully showing her school pride and there is no imagination required anymore.

Trini isn’t doing well in biology, honestly.

This whole…disaster of an attraction is easy enough to ignore. Trini can pretend that she does not stare at the girl’s legs. She can pretend, even, that she hasn’t seen Kimberly strip and dive into a pool of water up on the mountain. It’s easy; Kimberly doesn’t know who the hell she is, and Trini isn’t interested in explaining, either.

Of course, then Billy Cranston blows up a fucking mountain.

//

Alpha insists that they learn to work together as a group, as pairs, and as individuals. This ends in odd little ways, as they’re training endlessly in the pit, getting frustrated over not being able to morph. Trini and Jason are in a gym class together; when they end up on the same team, they work near seamlessly. She shares a shop class with Billy, who’s really way too smart to be in the same room as the lackwits that surround them. They work in silence around a workbench, passing off tools whenever the other one needs it.  
Even Zack, who Trini hardly ever sees in class or school, can show up when it comes down to the paired quizzes they do in government.

But Kimberly Hart has some exciting new short hair going on, and Trini has only recently learned that she has a deep and unabiding affinity for tank tops. This is hard to ignore: when they’re training, back to back, trading off on holographic putties, Kimberly’s muscles flex and Trini can’t help but watch. Kimberly’s already-tight jeans are even tighter, and she’s actually telling Trini all about this as they prep for a lab they’ve paired off for.

“All this working out is like, tripling my muscle size,” Kimberly says, then shrugs. The movement is easy to watch, because Kimberly’s taken off her leather jacket and stripped to her tank top so she can be unencumbered with the safety gear they’re supposed to be wearing. Trini snaps her goggles too tight to her face, but really, she’s been thrown into enough rockpiles in the past few days to not care too much.

“What a terrible problem to have,” Trini says, trying to remain dry and unaffected. Kimberly laughs – giggles, really. It’s the sort of sound that Trini would say had always terrified her about girls, and it rings a kind of fear through her that she nearly passes out.

“These guns,” Kimberly says, raising up her arms on either side and flexing. “Too cool for school.”

It’s a miracle Trini has survived this far.

//

Post-Goldar, post-rampant-destruction, post-slapping-Rita-into-space, Kimberly starts to come hang out at Trini’s. At first, it’s to help with fixing up her room, and sometimes the boys come around too. But mostly, it’s Kimberly, who enjoys complaining about Zack’s weird ideas for Zord maneuvers while lounging on Trini’s bed. There’s a certain exciting sisterhood aspect to being two superpowered girls on a superhero team – usually, Trini thinks, there’s only just one. For the better, probably, because if there were usually two, they’d start to think too much about how good the other looks lying on their bed.

After the room gets fixed up, Kimberly keeps coming by. Everyone keeps coming by, really, for various reasons but overall because they’re friends and they’re also tasked with protecting Earth from intruders. Trini’s parents don’t seem, at first, too suspicious about her influx of new friends, but they start to notice when Kimberly seems to rise to the top: there are a few times, certainly, that Trini has to call and say she’s staying at Kimberly’s to study for biology, when really, she’s got a bruise the size of Antarctica on her face from some oddball alien.

So they invite Kimberly over for dinner.

It becomes clear, very quickly, that something is afoot.

“So, how did you and Trini meet, Kimberly?” Trini’s dad asks, while her mom fidgets nervously with her fork. Trini is also fidgeting nervously, because, for some reason, Kimberly has shown up wearing a jeans, t-shirt, and opened button-down combination that has driven her to distraction.

“Um,” Kimberly says, looking over to Trini for some sort of clue. She has none. They met on a mountain when their friend Billy blew it up.

“Biology,” she finally comes out with, and shrugs helplessly. “We were lab partners.”

“Oh, how fun,” Trini’s dad says. “You know, I met Trini’s mom in a ballroom dancing class in college.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Kimberly says. Trini’s heard the story enough times to know how sweet it is, but she is interested to discover the connection between these two events. Her mother looks fit to burst, and so, when she does, after Kimberly begins talking about how smart she thinks Trini is when it comes to something that has to do with biology (Trini has no idea; she’s been distracted by Kimberly rolling up the sleeves of her button down), it isn’t a shock at all.

“We support you guys,” Trini’s mom says, like she’s struggling through it, but trying very hard. Her brothers have no idea what’s happened here, but her dad is reaching to grab his mom’s hand and squeezing it, looking at the two of them with genuine affection and kindness. Trini looks over at Kimberly, who is clearly piecing together what’s happening here very quickly.

“Oh,” Kimberly says, looking back at Trini before taking a drink of water that lasts way too long.

“We’re not - ”

“We don’t want to push you, Trini,” her dad says, looking like he’s trying so hard, and her mom is on the verge of tears.

Thankfully, miraculously, their communicators go off at the same time and they can make up some story about how Jason has just driven into a ditch and desperately needs their help to get him out.

//

Kimberly tries to steal her donut the next day, as the five of them jam in around the tables in the Krispy Kreme. It’s been rebuilt, and the employees are well-aware that they serve delicious jelly-filled monstrosities right over a very important thing in the ground. The Power Rangers haven’t exactly taken time out of their increasingly busy schedule to explain what that thing is, but the citizens of Angel Grove, and the employees of the Krispy Kreme, know something is up.

Billy is trying to explain a new Zord thing he’s discovered with Alpha to Jason, and Zack is sort of listening, sort of staring at the new girl in town, Tommy Oliver, who’s all kinds of gorgeous. Trini is sort of staring as well, because it’s hard not to notice the girl when she’s as tall as an Amazon and all blue-eyed and blonde. This is when Kimberly tries to steal her donut, right from Trini’s own hand.

It doesn’t go particularly well, but Kimberly manages to grip Trini by the wrist and pulls her halfway across the table, the donut inches away from her mouth. Thankfully, Trini manages to look away from Tommy long enough to glare at the other beautiful girl in the room, who is licking her lips devilishly.

“Alpha always says to keep your guard up,” Kimberly says, pulling again and successfully getting Trini up and out of her seat - the donut is nearly touching her lips now. Trini sits back down so forcefully, pulling Kimberly’s arm into the table, that it splinters under her elbow. The taller girl is raising her eyebrows at her, in that way that Trini finds devastatingly attractive.

“Give up on my donut,” Trini says, quite decisively.

“You should probably just let the girl have her donut,” a voice says from behind Trini, giggling softly. It’s Tommy, and Trini, Jason, and Zack all turn to stare at her as she accepts a box of donuts and a cup of coffee from a server. She’s wearing a green jacket, sleeves rolled up – and the funniest thing about being a teenager experiencing the burgeoning of her sexuality is that Trini finds some of the oddest things hot. Today, it’s Tommy Oliver’s forearms.

Of course, Kimberly pulls Trini out of her chair in the space of her distraction, and nearly swallows the donut hole. Tommy off and disappears with a quick goodbye and a promise to see them in detention, and while Zack is watching her walk off and Jason tunes back into Billy, Kimberly licks one of Trini’s fingers, one single eyebrow raised.

“Maybe don’t get distracted by pretty girls,” Kimberly offers, by way of apology. Trini is practically in space, she’s so dumbfounded by the shock of feeling that had shot through her when Kimberly Hart’s tongue had touched her fingers.

//

After the dinner incident, Trini starts going to Kimberly’s. Her house is cozied up to the mountain, nice and pretty. Her parents seem largely absent, and when Trini asks one day, one of those days where they’ve been pummeled by some space alien and they don’t feel like moving anywhere, Kimberly just shrugs.

“They travel a lot,” she says, then places a pizza order online, yelling triumphantly. In her own home, Kimberly apparently finds it fit to narrow her wardrobe to short running shorts and her assortment of multicolored tank tops. It’s been amusing to notice over the past month, since Goldar, that her colors have started to shift to a prototypical girly pink.

Trini’s mom calls somewhere around eleven, after Kimberly has crashed facefirst into bed with an ice pack on her lower back. Trini is trying desperately to finish up something that has to do with – cells? – but cannot help but be distracted by both the physical body of her friend and crush, and the photos of her around her bedroom.

“Are you okay?” her mom asks, and Trini sighs. She’s trying hard to be better about conversating with her parents – Zack is nearly insistent on the group trying there hardest to be good to them. But it’s so damn hard when her mom talks to her like she barely understands her.

“Yeah,” Trini says. “Kim and I are working on a bio project. I think I’m going to crash here.”

She expects no argument – surely she’s independent enough to get away with hiding the huge black eye she’s accumulated. But her mom makes a noise of hesitation on the phone.  
“Do you really think that’s appropriate?” she asks, and Trini realizes, quite suddenly, that her mother is still operating on the assumption that there is something happening here.“Mom,” Trini says, but before she can insist, once and for all, that Kimberly Hart wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole and her deep attraction to the girl was certainly never going to progress further than the fantasy level, her mom sighs.

“Sorry, honey,” she says. “Just…be careful. I love you.”

“Love you too,” Trini says, and it tastes a little odd on her tongue, but that’s okay. Kimberly is snoring into her pillow, and so she snapchats a little video of it to the group. Billy replies with a vigorous ‘TURN HER OVER’ while Jason sends back a picture of his own huge ice pack, somewhere on his thigh.

She goes to lay down on the couch in Kimberly’s living room, just after she locates a bag of peas for her eye.

//

One night, as they’re all ducking out of the mountain and splitting off, Kimberly ducks off to the side, pulling Trini with her. Jason at least notices, while Billy and Zack are chattering on and on about some of the wiring in the Zords that needed repairs. He takes one look at Trini’s face and gives a little half-wave in goodbye.

Trini knows immediately where they’re going when Kimberly takes the correct left turn.

“Sorry, I just needed to get away from sweaty boys,” she says, dropping her backpack on the ground and tugging at her tank top. It comes right off, because it’s a thin, sweat-drenched tank top. Kimberly’s eyes stick to Trini’s, waiting for a response.

“Um, fair,” is what she comes up with. Kimberly giggles again, and then she pulls her pants off, looking pointedly at Trini.

“You coming?” she asks, tugging at Trini’s jacket. “You need me to throw you in this time, too?”

“I’m never forgiving you for that,” Trini mutters, pulling off her jacket and dropping it on a rock. Kimberly’s underwear is lacy and, of course, pink, and it matches, and Trini is trying not to look at it directly for fear of her death. When she yanks her t-shirt off, kind of angrily, Kimberly’s laughter quiets down.  
“You needed to take the plunge,” Kimberly says, with the kind of wisdom she’s wont to come out with.

Trini doesn’t reply, so much as she pulls her sweatpants down and then tackles Kimberly into the pond. They land well enough, because they have reflexes reinforced by supernatural forces, but Kimberly is still gasping for air once they surface, pointing at Trini with an open mouth and spluttering.

“You’re a traitor,” she says, jabbing one finger right into the strap of Trini’s bra. Trini reaches out to snap at Kimberly’s, because she’s feeling playful quite suddenly. Kimberly gasps again, and splashes water in her face, laughing so exuberantly that Trini forgets to care so much about staring at her, lit up by moonlight.

Kimberly takes this time to come closer, grabbing ahold of Trini and pulling her up out of the water before slamming her back in. They tussle for a little bit under the water, their expanded lungs serving them well as Trini shoves Kimberly so hard that she hits the bottom of the pool, and Kimberly shoves back so hard that when Trini hits the side wall, it cracks a little at her back. She scrambles upwards – this is all simple fun, between two superpowered girls – but Kimberly is faster than all of them, really, so it isn’t a shock when she makes it up above the waterline only to get snagged by the ankle and thrown backwards, slamming into the water again.

She dives deep enough, and manages to stick to the shadows of the water. Kimberly can’t see her, starts laughing and yelling for Trini to “come out, come out wherever you are.” She sort of thought she already had.

But Trini swims upwards so fast that she pushes Kimberly up and out of the water, then catches her when she comes back down, laughing so hard that it’s a shock some hikers or miners haven’t heard them. Kimberly is laughing too, clutching her shoulders and knocking her head down into Trini’s neck.

She snaps out of it when Kimberly says something, her lips brushing at Trini’s neck. And then she’s just staring at the other girl, and they’re disheveled, to say the least – Kimberly’s bra has shifted around plenty during this whole playfight, and extra skin has revealed itself. Trini can’t help but stare it down. Before she can say anything or pretend she isn’t lusting after her best friend and team member, Kimberly reaches out so hesitantly – so unlike her – and tugs at the strap of Trini’s bra, pushing it up onto her shoulder again with a soft – so soft – smile.

//

Alpha asks her why her heart is beating so fast when Kimberly’s shirt gets ripped in half by a putty in the pit and Zack laughs at her for ten minutes. Jason smiles too, just shakes his head while Billy begins to bounce possible reasons off of Alpha. Thankfully, no one manages to get to arousal, but when Kimberly turns around after successfully crumbling the massive putty, her shirt soaked with sweat and hanging around her hips, revealing cultivated abs, Trini gets yanked upward by Alpha and told to go to the medbay of the ship so he can run tests.

When she glances behind as she’s sheepishly making her way out, Kimberly is smirking at her, Zack is on the ground howling, and Jason is laughing now too. Billy has already gotten up to prepare for his round with the putties, but gives a wave as she turns the corner.

Zordon is waiting for her when she gets there, and the weird sentient little things scan her body for abnormalities.

“Hey, Z,” Trini mutters, settling down on one of the scanning beds, and watching as Zordon’s face comes in through the static on the screen in the medbay. “I’m fine, you know. You should reprogram Alpha to chill.”

“Rangers become closer to each other than anyone else could imagine,” Zordon says, ignoring Trini’s thoughts and greeting. He’s sort of like that, so she’s used to it. “There were times when I was certain I was reading my team’s minds.”

“Okay,” Trini says, as a little scanner thing beeps at her.

“You should know that you will only grow stronger the closer you grow together,” Zordon says.

“Why aren’t you telling this to Jason? Isn’t he the one who needs managerial lessons or whatever?”

“You know why I’m telling you this, Trini,” Zordon says, and Trini does know why, which is the worst part about this.

“I don’t really need love advice from my alien mentor figure,” Trini says, and Zordon’s face stretches into a smile – a smile, for God’s sake, he’s smiling – before he heads back to his usual solemnity. The door to the medbay opens up to reveal Kimberly strolling in, pulling on a new shirt. This provides Trini another gratuitous abs appearance.  
“You all good?” Kimberly says, then glances at the screen and smiles, sort of. “Zordon. You two having a fun chat?”

“Kimberly, Trini, your strength is impressive. You are tapping into new depths together,” Zordon says, and then his face disappears, the screen smoothing over. Before he goes, it feels as though Trini receives a pointed stare, which is just – ridiculous. He’s a talking wall.

“I get that he’s an alien,” Kimberly says, coming a little closer and laughing. “But I wish he’d talk less like a self-help book.”

For some reason, this strikes Trini as hilarious, and Kimberly starts laughing even harder. By the time the laughter runs out, the scanners are done, Kimberly’s wrapped her arms around her, and Alpha is rushing in claiming that her and Kimberly’s hearts must be under deep stress, because they’re beating too fast again.

//

The pterodactyl crashes into a vineyard somewhere, and it explodes so forcefully that Billy screams. The boys are all occupied trying to deal with the malevolent, big alien that forced Kimberly out of the sky, biting and shooting, but Trini is far enough away and the boys have it handled enough that she turns tail and heads for the crash site.

Technically, Jason tells her to go, but she’s halfway there by the time he does.

When she launches out of her cockpit and ducks through the debris of the Zord scattered across the field, it’s hard to see Kimberly at first. She’s dragging herself out of the remains of her cockpit, and her armor has nearly cracked in half at the waist. It all repairs itself, over time, but there is such a thing as too much force, too much trauma – and she hadn’t noticed, but Trini is crying.

Kimberly lets herself be dragged out of the mess with a groan, and as the Zord begins to get beamed back to the mountain in pieces, something Alpha will be thrilled with, Trini grabs ahold of Kimberly’s hands and squeezes them so hard she’s sure she’s breaking them.

“Kim’s good, guys,” Trini says over comms, and Kimberly clutches at her arm, moaning unhappily with her injury. The armor fades out, and Trini is left with a bloody and bruised regular old Kimberly Hart, wearing (what else?) a tank top and leggings that leave nothing to the imagination.

“Alpha’s gonna love fixing the T-Bird again,” Kimberly says, laughing and reaching up to tap at Trini’s face. Her mask is still down.

“Why were you so stupid?” Trini says, and her mask slides up, and Kimberly’s laughter ebbs off, looking at Trini’s face very carefully.

“Trini, I’m fine,” Kimberly says. Her forehead, as she says this, is bleeding copiously, and when Trini tries to hoist her up, she nearly screams when Trini hits her ribs.

“You aren’t fine, you crazy girl,” Trini mutters, setting Kimberly back down on the ground and pulling up Kimberly’s shirt to see the mass of bruises that lie just under her sports bra, already gruesome looking moments after impact.

“Hey, you’re the crazy girl,” Kimberly says, then yelps as Trini touches the bruises, trying to ascertain whether there’s anything she can do out here to help with the obvious injury. “Trini, don’t cry.”

Trini wasn’t aware she was crying, but Kimberly reaches up awkwardly to try to push away the tears from her face, grimacing as it stretches out her ribs.

“I’m fine,” Kimberly says, softly and kindly. Trini reaches out a shaky, gloved hand to push some of the blood out of Kimberly’s eyebrows, and her mask slides shut suddenly. Alpha had tried to explain the whole psychic nonsense involved there, but it mostly seemed to entail hiding when you wanted to hide. Kimberly gets ahold of her hand, and the armor drops away there as Kimberly squeezes it tightly. “I’m fine, Trini.”

“You’re a mess,” Trini says, the distortion of her voice somewhat comforting to her. Kimberly shrugs a little, dropping her head backwards onto Trini’s thigh guard, clearly tired of having to hold up her head. She’s watching Trini’s non-face.

“If you had wanted to get my shirt off, you could have just asked,” Kimberly says, very woozily, her grip on Trini’s hand waning as her eyes start to close.

“I’m gonna take her home, guys, she’s out of it,” Trini says. Jason affirms, says something about how they’ve knocked the monster down and they’ll debrief tomorrow, and Alpha beams them to the mountain, checks Kimberly for major injuries, and sends them out with a warning about the danger of concussions.

//

At two in the morning, the alarm on Trini’s phone goes off. She wasn’t sleeping, really, just watching the moonlit form of Kimberly breathe on the bed, facedown again. She’s demanded a variety of ice packs and hot packs, and has also thrown off most of her blanket. It’s sort of beautiful in the mess of it.

Kimberly tries to take a swing for the phone, reaching out sideways and nearly hitting it. Trini pulls it out of the way before the girl breaks it – she’s broken so many of them that the rest of the Rangers do not feel confident handing their own off to her.

“Hey, sunshine, wake up and prove to me that you aren’t in a coma,” Trini says, poking at a part of Kimberly’s body that doesn’t seem purpled.

“Your Zord explodes one time….” Kimberly groans, blinking her eyes open and smiling blearily at Trini. She hadn’t realized how close she had leaned to look at the other girl, but their faces are inches apart. Kimberly’s eyes struggle to focus, thanks to the combo of sleep and concussion, but her eyes trace Trini’s face with practice. She certainly isn’t comatose.

“It exploded the first time you used it, Kim,” Trini mutters, handing over a glass of water which Kimberly downs in one gulp.

“Semantics,” Kimberly says, setting her glass down on the floor and looking at Trini carefully. “Get off the floor and in the bed. I saw you limping.”

Trini looks on Kimberly’s prone form, which is taking up as much of her double bed as physically possible, especially considering all the accessories she’s accumulated and shakes her head, brushing some of Kimberly’s hair out of her eye.

The other girl blinks, then shuffles a little, pushing toward the wall.

“Bed.”

Trini gets in the bed, even though it runs hot and cold all over. She places one hand on Kimberly’s upper bicep, and Kimberly swings her arm across her body to hold onto it loosely. Trini feels her hand rise and fall, held underneath the other girl’s, as Kimberly goes back to sleep.

//

“Are we ever going to talk about how your parents think we’re dating?” Kimberly asks, a week later, sitting at her kitchen counter and doing a legitimate biology project. Trini’s just got off the phone with her mom again, explaining that they’re doing, yes, another biology project. Most of the time, it’s a cover for having to go save the world, but – she can see how it might come off as a cover for making out with the hottest girl in school.

“I was planning on not,” Trini says, handing over a glue stick so Kimberly can use it for whatever affixing she’s doing to their project board. They don’t really need to talk about these things anymore – communication between the five of them nears telepathic at some points. They certainly haven’t faceplanted in the Megazord in a while.

“If I ask you on a date,” Kimberly asks, “then can we talk about your parents thinking we’re dating?”

Trini, for her part, mostly splutters.

“Because I’d like to go on a date,” Kimberly says, shrugging. Her tank top’s strap slides down her shoulder, revealing another pink bra strap. “And I would really enjoy it if you just got over yourself and kissed me.”

“What the hell?” Trini finally says, because there’s little else she can say.

“I’ve been waiting for a while,” Kimberly says. She smiles a sweet little smile at Trini. God, a sweet little smile. She really does have it bad.

“Okay,” Trini says.

So she kisses Kimberly Hart, right there over their biology project on cell fusion. It’s the kind of kiss you write home about; their ability to move around each other in perfect symmetry makes it near acrobatic. It’s the kind of kiss you don’t forget, especially when you’re kissing the prettiest damn girl in school.

“How about Krispy Kreme for our date? It’ll be like saving the world, enjoying fine dining, and dating at the same time,” Kimberly asks, later, when they’re sitting on the couch watching the news. They’re speculating over the identities of the Rangers again. They seem to have finally begun thinking that the yellow ranger is not a boy, which is nice of them. Kimberly is offended that they’ve always thought the pink ranger was a girl.

Trini kisses her, and it feels the same way it feels when the power coin hums in her hand: bright, strong, and overwhelming.

////////////


End file.
